


Love Is A Language

by Trismegistus (Lebateleur)



Category: The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley
Genre: Banter, Emotionally Repressed, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Missing Scene, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29119200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/pseuds/Trismegistus
Summary: Both Mori and Thaniel are learning to speak each other's language, but neither of them is brave enough to ask the questions they should.
Relationships: Keita Mori/Thaniel Steepleton
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	Love Is A Language

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt to make sense of how Mori and Thaniel's relationship could go from where it was at the end of _The Watchmaker of Filigree Street_ to where they were at the start of _The Lost Future of Pepperharrow._

Six had gone outside after tea. Now it was just the two of them in the kitchen, Mori doing the washing-up while Thaniel sat down to his evening revision at the freshly cleared table. He was making steady progress down the third column of text when Keita’s hands paused slightly while drying the bowl he held. ‘What’s the matter? I thought you loved learning characters.’

Thaniel had very consciously refrained from sighing, but some ghost of the intention seemed to have slipped out regardless. ‘Normally I do,” he admitted. ‘But they are a lot to bite off, even on days when Fanshaw _doesn’t_ announce you’re to learn all the ones having anything to do with transatlantic shipping by week’s end.’ He set down his pen and shot a crooked grin at Mori. ‘A pair of tiny pictures for any and every concept mankind can dream up. How is there anything rational about that?’

‘How is there anything rational about a language with 8,000 sounds and no standard way to note them down in writing?’

‘Oh, well, that’s different,’ Thaniel said, even though he saw that it wasn’t. ‘And clearly less challenging. It certainly hasn’t held you back, even allowing for all the inconsistencies you met along the way. You’d never know you weren’t born and bred in Lincoln, to hear you speak.’

Keita gave him a flat look. ‘You have no idea how hard I had to work for that.’

‘You did never.’

‘I did. “Thaniel?” It took me years just to get the “l” right, let alone the “th.” And then came “Steepleton,” right on its heels.’

Thaniel blinked. He had never considered that just learning how to properly pronounce his name might not seem terribly far off from torture to a Japanese speaker, but of course it would. _But if merely saying my name was so hard, what made you want to learn to in the first place? And why on earth did you keep at it, once you’d remembered how difficult the rest of it would be?_ With anyone else, Thaniel might have asked. But with Keita, it was pointless. He knew why; _he_ was why.

And that just led to a different set of questions, all of them equally pointless. _Was I worth it, in the end? Or just better than any of the alternatives you’ve remembered?_

_Do you know that I love you?_

He let the shutters of his mind slam down instantly. 

At the sink, Mori had gone very still. ‘You were going to ask me something,’ he said slowly.

‘Only whether there’s any difference between “sea lane” written with the “sea” character or the “ship” character,’ said Thaniel, cursing himself as he cast about for any faintly plausible excuse to replace the memory those all-but-spoken words had created. It had been a momentary lapse, a long held question rising to the surface in an unguarded moment, but what on earth had he been thinking? It felt like the worst sort of manipulation, to intend something strongly enough that Mori could all but remember it, and besides, if he wasn’t brave enough to ask a question aloud, he didn’t deserve an answer to it.

‘No, that wasn’t it,’ Mori said, shaking his head slowly, as if trying to clear his ears of water. ‘It was something else, and it was important.’

And though he still wanted, dearly, to ask, Thaniel knew better. He had seen the panicked widening of Mori’s eyes, reflected in the window over the sink. He had known far longer than that, in fact. Because in another world—any number of other worlds—Thaniel surely would have asked, and Mori recorded him doing so in his journal. And then steered them both away from it ever happening as surely as he guided them through the crowded London streets, through fog so thick it was all but solid.

It wasn’t fair, Thaniel thought, to ask Mori for more than he gave already, when he clearly didn’t care to give more. And so he focused determinedly on his question about the characters and watched the fear and confusion drain from Mori’s face until it was as though Thaniel had never almost meant to say anything else at all.


End file.
